College Student Money

Connect With Us

Research Paper Writing Tools: Pt. 1 - The Library

Transcript

Today I'm introducing a three part series to you called "Tools for writing research papers." This is going to be a three part series and in each series I'm going to go over some tools that you can utilize more in your research and I think that they are underutilized.

First is utilizing the Library for research.

The library is great.

The first reason why I really like the library for research is because it has both quiet study sections and group study sections.

So if you are doing a group research assignment, the library is the place to go. You can go there and collaborate. There are areas where you don't have to be quiet, you can talk and use the reference materials at the library. If you are doing it on your own, there are also quiet study areas where you won't be disturbed, and can focus.

Number2, I like the print and media sources at the library.

These are fantastic because they are in hard copy. Book, journals, magazine, video cassettes, tape cassettes, CDs, DVDs, and maps, and other print materials that are right at your fingertips that are relevant to you research.

So you are getting the hard copy of your research and that you can add it to your bibliography. Very valuable. The fact that its hard copy- you can see the copyright date, flip though the pages, very very valuable. So that's another reason why I like utilizing the library.

Number 3 is even better. If you don't have time to finish, you can just check it out and take it with you. That's number 3, you can take it with you. You can take your research materials with you.

If you don't have time to finish your research at the time you go to the library, you can check it out, and if you want to spend more time on it later you can just take it home with you. Once you are don't with your research, you can bring it back. It's as simple as that.

Make sure that you have your student ID with you when you go to the library so you can check out things when you need to.

Lastly, using the library's website. This is another fantastic resource because the library's website has even more resources. It has e-books, audio books, it has images and printed materials that are scanned in. A fantastic resource.

Plus, it also has article databases. These are electronic data bases that have complied lots and lots of articles of research done by other people. You can actually search for articles specifically about your research topic.

So you are getting peoples minds who have researched these topics in-depth. So, you are getting their opinions, their ideas, their thoughts, their research all collaborated into one source that you can utilize to build your own opinions, and your own ideas and your own thoughts about the topic you are researching. Very very valuable and powerful resource.

So again, the reasons why I really like the library, and suggest you utilize the library as a research tool, is

1- there are quiet and group study areas,

2- have the print material right there,

3- you can take it with you by checking it out, and

4- the library website is a very valuable resource.

So I hope you have liked this first part in this three part series. In the next part, we will talk more about how to use the librarian for your research.